


5 Times Jason Scott Was Protective of His Team

by notawriters



Category: Power Rangers, Power Rangers (2017)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-26
Updated: 2017-04-09
Packaged: 2018-10-10 20:52:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10447257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notawriters/pseuds/notawriters
Summary: and one time they were protective of him.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this was literally created as a result of the fact that jason scott is the mom friend. i tried to get all the character voices rights. pls drag the shit out of me if you felt like i got 'em wrong. also no beta sorry.

Jason Lee Scott is not protective. He would classify himself as the opposite of protective. He’s _anti-protective._ But that doesn’t mean that he can just let anyone fuck with his friends, because if there’s one thing he is, then it’s loyal. And if maybe, somewhere in his body, his soul, twist if he sees anyone on his team get hurt, well, nobody has to fucking know.

 **1\. Trini**  
Despite saving the world, fighting in a giant robot together, and spilling their deepest darkest secrets to each other, Trini is still kinda…a ghost. She’s totally a team player; will show up when called, supportive. But like getting her to talk or heavily interact with him, alone…is difficult. (In all honesty, Jason think’s if instead of sending a giant gold monster, Rita sent them a teenaged introvert to fight, they would’ve of lost - or at least he would've).

And Jason’s trying. He woke up early to trying to doing angry rock yoga with her. Unsuccessful. After five minutes, Trini called him clunky with the spiritual ability of a rock. Which wasn’t exactly wrong.

At lunch, he tried talking to her about normal non-ranger things like the pranks he did or last week’s episode of Survivor, because everyone loves Survivor. Except, not Trini, who stares at him hard with that look on her face, which might not be disgust, but something very close to annoyance, and when she slips on her headphones, he gets the clue.

It’s because of this poignant distance between them that Jason is confused as to why he gets a phone call from Trini at three in the morning asking to meet her at the mountain and because Jason is loyal as fuck, he goes.

He drives his now newly restored truck as high up as it can go and hikes his way up to Trini’s usual yoga stop, trying to quell down the worry that’s growing in his stomach, and instead focus on Trini, making sure she’s okay, making sure that she’s _alive_.

But when he gets to the top, Trini isn’t okay. The girl that he has seen keep a stone cold face even under the threat of death, is crying and Jason’s soul, his heart, does that fucking twist and his arms are around her in a second.

“What happened?” He ask, his eyes shifting back and forth in the night, looking for a threat in the darkness, like a mama bear protecting her cub.

With Trini’s head tucked underneath his chin and her body pressed against his, he notices for the first time, how very small she is.

Trini’s reply is muffled by hiccups and tears and he runs his hand through her hair until her words become clear.

“I told my mom.”

And that twisting Jason’s heart is doing, yeah, it stops. And is replaced with a very familiar feeling of dread.

“And she just looked at me…said I was just acting out…I was making it up to bother her. That I didn’t mean it. Like who I am, isn’t real. Like I’m not real.”

“She was wrong.”

“Listen to me, Trini. She was wrong. You are real. Your sexuality is not an inconvenience; it is who you are and has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with her.”

And he says those words over and over again. _You are real. You are real. You are real. You are real…_

They stay together on the mountain until Trini’s tears dry up and she starts to rebuild her tough girl armor.

“You don’t have to go home if you don’t want too.”

Trini, distancing herself from him in more ways than one, shrugs.

“Where can I go?

He grips her hand tight in his.

"Don’t worry about it. I’ll handle it.”

They walk back down the mountain together. Neither talking, but when Trini gets in his truck, she mutters a small thank you.

That night, Jason makes sure she stays at Zack’s. His place might be small, but he won’t talk half as much as Billy nor will his mom ask half as many questions as Kimberly’s.

That night when Jason gets home, he doesn’t sleep. Instead, he stays away, staring at the ceiling wondering what he can do to make Trini feel safe and loved and why her mother couldn’t love her half as much as he did.

 **2\. Zack**  
Outside of volunteering/telling Zack that Trini was staying at his place, Jason doesn’t give Zack orders outside of battle. They wouldn’t work anyway. Zack simply isn’t the do as you’re told type and any attempt to try and rein him in only causes fist fights and arguments. Now, considering that that’s their relationship as Zack and Jason, saviors of the world and maybe even the universe, consider what the relationship between Zack and public school is like.

And while Jason tends to keep his mouth shut on anything having to do with Zack’s mom, he knows that she and the team are truly the only reasons Zack even bothers to show up to school. Because to put it simply, Zack and the Angel Grove school system do not get along.

It would be easy for Jason if Zack’s problems were with other students; he could handle that. High school hierarchy has been something Jason has always excelled at. But no, Zack’s problems come directly from the teachers and staff of Angel Grove High.

Unlike Trini, who hangs out in detention with the team for fun, Zack, as it turns out, is a regular. Jason would like to say this is due to an inherent bias that the faculty of Angel Grove High has against Zack, that he truly does not deserve his sentence, but that would be an utter lie. Zack is simply put a menace and Jason says that as his friend. Zack does want he wants when he wants which means loud interruptions in class, getting up and leaving whenever he feels like - pretty much typical Zack. So Jason gets it, why Zack has a permanent spot in Saturday detention, why teachers slump a little lower when they see the name Zach Taylor on the roster. Jason understands, truly.

But what Jason doesn’t understand is what the fuck he is currently hearing.

Every Wednesday, Jason has a lovely meeting scheduled with Principal Caplan to discuss his current post-prank status. Read as for thirty minutes Caplan looks at him with disappointing eyes while discussing his life as Angel Grove’s biggest disappointment. Today, of course, is Wednesday, but instead of hearing Caplan’s usual soft grumblings as he thinks about his failed life as a high school principal, Jason hears Caplan ripping into Zack’s ass.

“Look, Mr. Taylor, can I be honest with you?”

Jason doesn’t need to be in that room to know that Zack is rolling his eyes.

“Sure, Mr. Caplan.”

Zack says the man’s name with pure condescension as if the fact that he was at least twenty years his senior with a college degree meant nothing.

“Why are you here?”

A question that confuses both Zack and Jason.

“To learn?”

Caplan sighs and tries again.

“Why are you here Mr. Taylor, at school, I mean? Your attendance is spotty at best. Graduation is a hoop dream for you. You’re smart, Zack. That’s evident, but you here...in this place...it’s just not practical. Look, I don’t want you here and you don’t want to be here, so why do we both have to suffer? It’s okay. Angel Grove has a kid like you every year. Some people aren’t meant for school, crossing that stage isn’t meant for everyone. And honestly, Zack, I would like to go a week without getting a complaint about you. So please, do us both a favor. Don’t show up tomorrow.”

And Jason’s ready, ready for Zack to spring up, to go for the attack, shove Caplan’s words up his ass. He doesn’t get that.

“Yeah, you know what. You’re right. Stupid of me to even be here. Thanks for the advice.”

When Zack walks out, Jason reaches out for his shoulder, but Zack shrugs him off.

“Zack!” He calls out to him, but he’s already out the door.

With the door open to his office, Caplan looks up at him and as if nothing had happened says:

“Oh, Jason. Ready for our meeting?”

It’s only because of the ankle monitor that Jason walks out, instead of punching him.

He finds Zack laying on top of an abandoned train car on the other side of the mountain with a beer bottle in hand.

“Hey.”

Zack ignores him. Jason sighs and jumps up to meet him.

“Hey.”

He tries again to touch Zack’s shoulder and receives a shove that sends him flying into the hard rock of the ground, meaning that this will have to get done the hard way. Jason leaps back up onto the train and grabs Zack’s shoulder. Rather than a shove, he gets a punch to the face and well that’s it. They fight, hitting and kicking each other, tumbling onto the ground and mashing into the train. When they are finished, they have caused more destruction to their surrounding area than to each other, though Jason can admit he’s going to have a nice bruise on his face come tomorrow morning.

They lay on the ground together, their panting filling up the air around them.

“You done?” He ask.

Zack makes a face.

“Not sure. You have one of those pretty boy faces.”

“My pretty boy face? Have you seen your cheekbones? Toxic.”

And then Zack’s laughing, leaving his dark cloud behind and returning to his regular carefree state. Jason feels a surge of victory so strong that he starts laughing too. They laugh together for what feels like hours about Jason’s shitty joke, the fact their Power Rangers, and how the school system that supposed to support Zack is failing him.

When they stop laughing, Jason turns and looks at Zack.

“He’s wrong, you know.”

Zack shrugs.

“Except, he’s not. I’m bad at school. I’m bad at that whole sitting down, listening to some old white guy talk thing.”

“You listen to me.”

“Eh, you aren’t that old.”

“It’s just...When my mom started getting really sick, I just saw how much bullshit it was. Life is short, man. And this whole spending over ten years of your life shit trapped in a school building ain’t for me. Time is precious, my mom is dying fast, and school is dumb.”

“And I know I choose to rack up like 50 absences, but it would be nice to know that one person didn’t think I was a complete screw up.”

“Well, guess, what. You are a screw up, but I am screw up too and the world’s biggest secret is that screw ups get shit done too. You’re the craziest guy I know, Zack. Crazy enough to miss an entire semester of school and still graduate.”

For a moment, Jason’s word do nothing, but hang in the air.

“You read that in a book or something?”

And Jason can read in-between the lines enough to know what that means: thank you. But him and Zack, they communicate in their own way, so he replies:

“It was in the latest edition of Teenage Fuck Ups.”

“Some good shit.”

The next day, Zack shows up for school and the extra detention Jason gets for giving Principal Caplan the finger is completely worth it.


	2. Chapter 2

**3\. Kimberly**

Out of all of his teammates, Jason worries about Kimberley the least. Not in the sense that he doesn’t care about her, but in the sense that for the most part Jason knows that Kim can handle her shit. It was because of Power Rangers that he became friends with her, but before that in no way was Jason not aware of who she was. The fact of the matter is that Kimberly Hart, whether she’s Angel Grove’s resident queen bee or the town’s newly created outcast, is a force of nature. He knew that second she chopped off her hair in a high school bathroom and walked out with her head held high, daring anyone to talk to shit, a girl like that doesn’t need Jason’s worrying.

(And when Jason’s being completely honest with himself, none of them do really. But he can’t help that he cares and when he cares, he worries. Something that is probably a product of growing up in a home where love meant over-zealous support.)

Jason knows that Kim uses that fact to her advantage. She allows people to get caught up in the human hurricane that is Kimberly fucking Hart, so that no one tries to dig deeper, and in a way, Jason gets that. It’s what makes caring for her so hard, because people don’t faze her, Kimberly fazes herself. She’s her own worst enemy, always. Every battle with her is internal and you won’t know there’s a problem until Kimberly tells you. And Jason’s fine with waiting for her to come to him, really. It’s just with Kimberley, it turns out, he’ll be waiting a long time.

The problem starts on Monday…or at least that’s when he starts noticing things.

Jason might be formerly popular, but he still remembers the hierarchy of things. Lunch is essentially a social event that determines your place in the social ladder. Jason would like to say they made their MegaLunch Table - Billy’s words - on the outskirts of the school cafeteria as a fuck you towards that system, but, in reality they just needed a place to talk about Ranger business without anyone hearing and Jason, though he loves them, really doesn’t trust Billy with his explosives and Zack with his mouth that close to large groups of people and food. They already blew up school lunch once, Jason’s really not trying to go for a second time.

Billy’s in the middle of telling them how he is the new lord of the geek’s, when Jason sees Kim’s eyes flicker to her former lunch table. Jason looks over too. The cheerleaders are laughing and eating lunch, just like them. None of them seem to be taking the time to be making Kim particularly miserable at this point. He turns back to the table and Kimberly seems fine. She has taken out a sheet of paper to make Billy a paper crown. Zack, of course, feels as though he deserves a title as well and Jason knows they will be spending this Saturday’s detention coloring their new crowns. He looks at Kimberley one last time to make sure she’s okay and then goes back to eating his lunch.

Tuesday...is weird.

After town clean-up, Kim ask if they want to go to Krispy-Kreme, the same one that sits on top of a crystal that gives life to the world, the same one that Rita destroyed while trying to kill them. It’s kind of an unspoken agreement that Krispy-Kreme is not for them, but after a long pause, Jason agrees and the team follows.

Billy is a little twitchy when they get there and Jason’s a little preoccupied with making sure he’s okay, when he feels a rough stab in the gut.

“Ow!” He grunts and looks down at Trini.

She points to a table in the back, where in a circle around it Angel Grove High’s resident cheerleaders sit. Trini raises an eyebrow.

Weird.

Kimberly is extremely enthusiastic when they go to sit down. Jason sends the team a look to just go with it and shoves a Power Ranger themed donut in Zack’s mouth when he starts to speak. Jason marks the incident as  ‘need to discuss’ and leaves it for Wednesday.

However, Principal Caplan decides to to be an ass Wednesday and Jason spends the day with Zack instead.

By Thursday, Kimberly has upgraded from weird to kind of shady.

They’re at lunch when she strikes again.

Zack is on his way to getting punched by Trini when Kimberly interrupts.

“You guys want to go to the game this Friday?” She says it smooth and easy as if they all have a penchant for school spirit and one of them hadn’t been kicked off the football team.

Billy, bless his heart, manages to dig the knife in Jason’s back a little deeper by asking, “What game?”

“The football game.”

Billy looks at him.

“I don’t…” He starts. “Um, considering…”

He looks back and forth between the two of them.

“We..um...I...I think football is good...it’s a great sport..but not for us. Yeah, football is not for us.”

Zack, no longer bothering Trini, is now picking at his food.

“I think I’m hanging out with my mom that night.”

Trini simply says, “I’m busy.”

He forces himself to smile and go:

“I’m good.”

And before Power Rangers, Jason knows he would have been angry, pissed even. Now, he’s only hurt and worried, because despite what the entire school thinks, Kim isn’t actually a raging bitch. She would never hurt him on purpose, so whatever’s hurting her is strong. Strong enough that Jason wonders how much longer it’s gonna take for her to come to him.

Not that long it seems, because Jason wakes up in the middle of the night with her hand covering his mouth.

“I’m sorry about lunch today.”

Jason blinks, trying to quell his fight-or-flight response, and wondering if he left his window open again.

“Is this going to become a thing?” He ask.

And she laughs, hard enough that the worry lines on her face fade away and she looks more like Kimberly again.

She lays on top of the blankets and rests her head on his bare chest. His arms go to circle around her much like how he did Trini and it feels right. Intimate in a way that only comes from get realizing you would die for this person.

“I’m sorry about this week too.”

Jason nods.

“The Krispy-Kreme thing was pretty bad.”

She twist his nipple in response. For a moment, she looks a lot less like Kimberly Hart, Power Ranger badass, and instead Kimberly Hart, regular teenage girl.

“It was stupid. Everything this week was stupid. I was stupid.”

The words come out of her mouth in a stream of guilt and self-loathing, two feelings that Jason knows she drowns in everyday. His hand runs up and down her shoulder, trying to comfort her the best that he can.

“How about you tell me what this is all about?”

She groans.

“I can’t.” The words struggle to leave her mouth as if they are getting lodged in her throat. “It’s…”

“Stupid.” He finishes for her.

“Yeah.”

“Try me.”

“I miss my friends.” The words come out against the hard plane’s of his chest and Jason  _ understands _ .

“I know it’s dumb and they treat me like shit now, but I miss the life I had.”

She continues on, absentmindedly tracing patterns into his skin.

“You guys are great, but...I miss Krispy-Kreme on Tuesdays after practice. I miss eating lunch with them. These are girls I grew up with. We did gymnastics and dance together since we were five and now, I’m nothing to them.”

Kimberly takes his silence as a negative sign and says, “See? Stupid.”

Except it’s not stupid, because Jason gets it. The hardest thing about a fall from grace is not the fall itself, by the people you lose in the process. Jason lost friends too. Boys that he thought of as brothers, that barely say hi in the hall now. Losing a friend, no matter the circumstances is always painful, because no matter what, you still have the memories.

“Not stupid. Not stupid at all.” He says, “We’ve been friends for six months. Those girls have been your friends you whole life. You’re allowed to miss them.”

“Even though I’m the one that fucked up?”

“Even though you’re the one that fucked up.”

Kimberly nods even though he doesn’t think she believes him.

“So what do I do?”

And Jason doesn’t have a solid Zordon approved answer for her, but he tries.

“You accept it. Things changed and change sucks, but you got us and I’m not saying we’re better than the cheerleading team, but we do come with zords.”

Kimberley places her chin on his chest and looks up smiling at him, the darkness in her eyes fading.

“You drive a hard bargain, Red.”

“I try.”

Friday, Kim sits with them at lunch and though she does turn to look back at the cheerleaders, Jason make sure that she looks ahead to see the team too.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whooo update. i didn't forget about this, but school. also thanks so much for all your nice words!! they really got me through my week. and final note, my grammar, horrible.

**4\. Billy**

Jason trained to be a Power Ranger in eleven days. In those days, he learned how to fight, how to morph, and how to lead his team. In not one of those eleven days, did he ever learn about how to deal with one of your friends dying and being brought back to life by the Morphing Grid - which Jason is almost fifty percent sure isn’t even an actual grid. So if as result of this, Jason is, theoretically, the most protective of Billy, then he really can’t help it.

In fact, Jason would go as far as to say that the need to protect Billy comes from a perfectly valid place, because as it turns out, Billy doesn’t have to be anywhere near a power coin or Rita to attract trouble; it naturally comes to him.

Well not trouble exactly, but not good things and after everything that has happened, Jason firmly believes that Billy deserves to have as many good things in as possible.The students of Angel Grove High, on the other hand, seem to want the exact opposite.

Take Saturday detention for instance.

Just a Jason predicated, they spend the entire day, coloring the paper crown’s Kimberly made at lunch. (Originally, there were just supposed to be two crowns - one for Billy and one for Zack - but Kimberly felt so bad about this week that they all got one.)

The team abandons their usual island like set up and merge all their desk together. In the middle, a giant pile of colored pencils that Jason nicked from his little sister and to the right of Billy is another set of colored pencils, arranged in neat orderly rows by their numeric color code. How Billy manages to not only remember color codes, but be able to match them to their exact color pencil, Jason doesn’t know, but like all things about Billy, he can’t help but find it a little cool.

Hands dart out in and out of the circle, reaching for different colored pencils and Jason feels like he’s back in kindergarten again. A time where friendships were purer and problems a lot easier, what a good feeling.

In between takes of trying to drawn pensises on Trini’s crown, Zack uses the black colored pencil to write ‘KING ZACK’ in large block letters on the front of his. Jason knows for sure that she lets him succeed exactly two times due to the way that Zack’s hand shakes when he goes to write his mother’s name in Chinese characters on the back of his crown.

Kimberly, as mysterious as ever, puts her arm around her crown and refuses to let anyone see it. Every time, Zack leans over the table to get a peek, she thumps him on the forehead and Billy laughs every time like clockwork.

And Jason cannot deny that, it’s here at Saturday detention, drawing on childish paper crowns that he feels the happiest he has in a long time. He should have known not to get to caught up in the feeling. Surrounding by the warmth of his friends, Jason tends to forget that the rest of the kids in Saturday detention aren’t misunderstood like Zack and Trini, or here because of one fuck-up that just happened to be too big like him and Kimberly. These kids are here, because they are, simply put, fucking assholes and that of course means that they are attracted to Billy.

They strike the moment Billy turns over to explain his crown.

“Hey, Special Ed! You got your friends doing coloring with you now.”

This time it doesn’t come from the redhead - seems a little someone learned their lesson - but a new challenger, dressed in all black with heavy looking combat boots. What a fucking cliche.

Jason stands before Billy even has the chance to reply, a red color pencil clenched between his fist.

“You the new asshole that’s trying get his shit wrecked?”

The asshole eyes him, unimpressed.

“Calm down, ‘roid rage. I was just wondering how much Ms.Crap Pants pays you to babysit.”

The pencil shatters in his hand.

Billy’s chair scrapes back as he moves to get up, but Jason’s got this. He can handle it for Billy. He puts his hand on Billy’s shoulder, keeping him in his chair. For a moment, Zordon’s words cross his mind about not starting fights and being the bigger person, but Jason’s never been good at following male advice. This time when he slaps the detention bully, he puts a little bit of his new found Power Ranger strength in it, just enough to cause a trickle of blood to fall from the asshole’s nose and for a feeling of satisfaction to sit heavy in his spine.

"Anyone else got shit to say?” He ask, turning around.

The other kids avoid his eyes and go perfectly silent.

“Thought so.”

Jason sits back down at the table, easy going as if nothing had happened.

“So, your crown?” He gestures towards Billy, but the boy shakes his head.

“Nevermind.”

Their coloring becomes painfully silent after that.

After detention, the team crams into his pickup for lunch. The awkwardness from earlier has lifted and now, they are all hungry teenagers with superhero sized appetites. As Jason pulls away from the school, they begin throwing out lunch suggestions.

“I want s'mores.” Zack states, and from the passenger seat, Kimberly whips around to give him a harsh look.

“We are _not_ ,” She says firmly, ”eating campfire food again.”

“I like campfire food.” Trini chimes in.

Jason’s not sure if that’s actually true or not, but it does cause Kimberly spread her glare evenly between the two of them.

“Traitor.”

“What about burgers?” Billy ask. His words fog up the window, not because the weather conditions, but because as much as they try, there’s never enough room in the back for all three of them. Without even looking away from the road, Jason shakes his head no.

Kimberly turns to him. “Burgers are good.”

“Fast food burgers make Billy sick and I just got the truck fixed.”

“You’re a third parent.” Zack scoffs.

“Just looking out for Billy.”

Jason smiles and looks up into the rearview mirror to get Billy’s backing, but he’s now staring off into the distance with a frown on his face. Jason marks it down to him being right about the burgers.

In the end, they decide on tacos and Jason’s truck comes out of the Taco Bell drive through smelling like processed meat and salsa. No one seems to mind. As he goes to drop everyone off, Billy is quiet. In fact, when they get to his house and he calls goodbye, Jason only gets a slight wave in response.

Him and Kimberly are the last ones left in the truck as he makes his way to her home. The radio plays faintly in the background and Kimberly plays with her rumpled up wrapper, looking back and forth between him and it.

“What?” He asks, finally, addressing her.

“Nothing. It’s just Billy’s a big boy, you know.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Okay.” She says and unbuckles her seatbelt to get out. As she’s climbing out the truck, though, she turns back.

“But some advice. You might want to start treating Billy like it.”

And when Kimberly slams the car door, Jason feels it throughout his whole body. Her words don’t click until later that night though, when Billy won’t respond to any of his text or reply in the group chat. Billy’s _mad_ at him and Jason gets why. All day he had been undermining him, speaking for Billy, instead of letting Billy speak for himself. He let this “protectiveness” turn into something ugly, something not good, the exact opposite of what he wanted for Billy.

He learns that night that mending fences with Billy is hard. He doesn’t pick up Jason’s calls or reply to any of Jason’s snaps. He’s being iced out and it’s more painful than he could ever predict.

Jason makes it to Sunday afternoon. It’s almost a full twenty hours of Billy being mad at him; a record he never wanted to set. He pulls the truck up to the side of Billy’s house feeling nervous, a newfound feeling associated with Billy. The steps to the Cranston’s front door are long and filled with trepidation. Feelings that are only confirmed when Ms.Cranston opens the door and says his name flat and monotone without the usual pride.

Billy doesn’t come get him and instead, Jason makes his way towards the basement. Despite making sure his steps are loud, Billy sits at his work table and doesn’t look up. Jason stands awkwardly in the room with his shoulder hunched and his hands stuffed in his pockets, his normal confidence seeming to escape him.

“I’m sorry.” He says.

Billy doesn’t respond and having this real life rejection feels ten times worse than it did over the phone. Jason feels that same twisting in his heart that he gets anytime his team is hurt or in danger, but this time it’s worse, because _he_ did this.

Finally, Billy stops tinkering and responds.

“I had friends before, who acted like how you did yesterday. Speaking for me. Doing things for me. I think it made them feel good about themselves, like they were doing charity or something.”

And Jason’s heart breaks, because that was never his intention. It was never about demeaning or hurting Billy, it was just about...making him _safe._

“I am so sorry.” He says again, trying and failing to find the right words.

“I thought you were different. You said you didn’t care. Why did you lie?”

“I didn’t.”

“Billy,” He pleads, “you _died_.”

“But, I came back.” Billy says it simply as no scars were left by his death/

He doesn’t get it. Jason let him died, he caused it. He failed him.

“You died, because of me.”

“What?” Billy, finally, looks back at him, confusion on his face.

“I was supposed to protect you and I didn’t. I let Rita kill you. I have to try to atone for that. I couldn’t protect you then, but I can look after you now.”

Billy gets up out of his chair and makes his way to Jason.

“We made that decision as a team. I don’t blame you.”

“But I blame me.”

Billy’s hand falls on his shoulder and Jason sees it now, just why the blue power coin choose Billy. He’s strong all on his own.

“Jason...you don’t have to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders. Everything we do, we do as a team. Every choice that was made, I made willingly. I don’t get social cues, but my decision making skills are just fine.”

“I just want to make it up to you.”

Billy’s arms come around him and it is one of the few times that he hugs Jason first.

“I don’t need you to be my bodyguard; I need you to be my friend.”

Jason nods.

“I can try to do that.”

Billy steps back then and the hug is over just as quickly as it began.

“Good.”

The air shifts in the room and Jason can tell that while they aren’t perfect, they are better.

That Monday, after detention, just the two of them go for burgers.


	4. Chapter 4

**+1**

Impulsive. Erratic. Most likely to give up the Super Bowl in the last five minutes of the game due to his own mistake. Jason knows what people say about him and frankly, they aren’t wrong. He came out the womb, bright pink, crying, and ready to have a good time. Along the way, he somehow managed to pick up a football and suddenly he had the hopes and dreams of an entire town on his shoulders. Angel Grove should have known better, Jason Lee Scott is a screw up plain and simple. Now, he just has an ankle monitor to prove it.

Those are Sam Scott’s words at least or maybe that’s just how Jason hears his dad’s lectures; as berating instead of words from a man scared for his son . Before the accident, before getting hit by a truck, Jason shrugged off all his father’s cries of responsibility and making the right choices. He’s seventeen, what the hell is life without a little fun. Post-accident life was a wake up call. He lost everything and the hole he dug himself into seemed to go on for an eternity. The team, becoming a Power Ranger, that’s what saved him. They force him to be better a Jason, a responsibility that Jason sometimes feels that he will crumble under. So many people need him now; the world, Angel Grove, the _team_. It’s as if everyone wants him to grow up and all Jason wants to do is cut loose.

Take right now for instance. His mom has already put Pearl to bed, making the house quiet of it’s usual sounds of laughter and cartoons. Already feeling the storm brewing between Jason and his dad, his mother leaves for the bedroom, maintaining her usual silence on his “wild” behavior, sending him big worried eyes looks. Sam picks the kitchen as the setting for this week’s battle. Jason is in the middle of doing his “responsible son” activity of washing dishes when his dad decides to strike.

“Your principal called.” Sam says, standing at the edge of the room.

Jason scrubs at a particularly hard stain of what looks like yesterday’s spaghetti, nodding absentmindedly.

“Yeah?” He says, finally starting to chip off the spaghetti sauce.

“Said you slapped a kid in detention. You skipped out on your meeting with him. Jason, what the hell?”

Jason eases up on cleaning and instead takes a deep breathe, trying to let this feeling of frustration go. Typical Sam; only having something to say when Jason’s failing and never any words for when he’s succeeding. In fact, the last time his dad had any praise for him was when he was on the football field. Great guy his dad is. Instead of drowning in his feelings and lashing out, he resumes cleaning.

“That kid was bullying Billy. I had to do something.”

“Billy can’t take care of himself?”

Jason feels the dish crack a little under the strength of his grip. Trying, he reminds himself, you’re trying.

“He can. I just made the wrong call.”

“The wrong call? You can’t just make the wrong call. When you mess up, there are consequences, that’s how we got in this situation in the first place. Jason! Jason, look at me!”

And Jason does look at him, hoping that somewhere on his face lies the answer as to what the hell he actually wants from him. All he sees is Sam flushed and heaving with anger.

“I thought you were doing better.”

Finally, Jason gathers his strength, searching for the words to make his dad understand the pressure he’s understand, the weight he feels everyday.

“I’m trying.” He says like a plea, hoping to convey everything with those two words.

“Try harder.”

With those final words, his dad turns and leaves, and the plate in Jason hands shatter. He simply lets it fall into the water, wishing that he could do the exact same with his life - let it all go. He clenches his eyes tight, trying to recall all those damn reasons that he’s working so hard in the first place. An image of the team flashes in his mind, how Angel Grove is currently on a losing streak. These reminders, though, don’t bring him their usual strength. How can they, when no matter Jason does he still keeps disappointing people. He still keeps failing.

Why try so hard if he’s only going to fall on his ass anyways? Why try to be the good if it’s never enough? Jason pulls his hands out of the water and moves towards the fridge, where he knows a six pack of beer awaits him. It’s with the beer in hand and the choking feeling of disappointment behind him, that Jason leaves the house.

He drives his truck to the mountain. The music is blaring from the car hard enough to shake the seats and the truck flies up with every rock that Jason hits. To Jason, it feels like freedom. The six pack of beer has been emptied out so that there are just two bottles left. Jason knows that his ankle monitor has already reported his activity, meaning that punishment is inevitable.

He tightens his seat belt anyways and pushes down on the gas petal. Tonight, he’s going to do more than just get drunk, he’s going to the fly. The truck takes off with a speed that Jason didn’t know the vehicle had. The rough ground of the mountain keeps throwing him and catching him. And Jason laughs because it is here off-roading on a mountain that could very surely kill him, that he finally feels like he has escaped the expectations placed on him. That escape begins to look seemingly permanent, when the truck goes up again and floats just a little too long. The vehicle lands back on the ground hard enough to jar him, so much so that he hits his head hard enough to pass out.

Jason dreams of a sweet nothing and wakes up to what feels like a ten pound weight on his ankle. From what he can see from the dark shadows of the room, he’s in a part Zordon’s ship. As he slowly comes to, he identifies the weight on his ankle as Trini’s head.

“You have a big head.” He says and it seems to wake up the whole room.

There are cries of “Jason!” and then there are three teenagers hugging him with inhuman strength.

“Guys, I need to breathe.”

Zack, Billy, and Kimberly pull off him with sheepish smiles while down by his feet Trini stares at him with hard eyes. Her head is no longer on his ankle and her arms have folded over her chest; he is being given the patented Trini Kwan glare. How she manages to be angry at him even while he’s injured is beyond Jason.

“What?” He ask her.

Trini throws her arms up in exasperation.

“What is wrong with you? Your truck was upside down we found you. We didn’t even know if you were alive!” Trini yells. “And drinking and driving? Haven’t you been in enough car accidents?!”

She sounds like a carbon copy of his dad and it’s exhausting.

“Trini.” Kimberly says firmly.

Trini goes quiet, her arms folding back up and her glare holding. She may have been silenced, but the anger remains.

“It’s fine.” Jason looks around the room at Billy’s frowning face and how Zack won’t meet his eyes. “Anybody else got something to say?”

Kimberly takes a step forward and takes her hand into his. Her grip is strong and to Jason it feels like a lifeline.

“We’re just worried. This isn’t like you.”

Across the room, Billy and Zack nod in agreement.

“My ankle monitor says differently.” Jason points down at the ankle opposing Trini to emphasize his words, but the monitor is gone.

“We removed it. The state of California thinks at you’re my house right now.”  Billy says with a hint of pride in his voice. Jason’s not sure if he should be thankful or worried that Billy is getting so good at illegal activity. He decides on both.

“Besides, the ankle monitor is punishment for something you did before. It has nothing to do with the Jason you are now.” Kimberly explains.

There’s that idea again, of how he’s this new Jason, one who makes better choices and does the right thing. It haunts Jason, follows him throughout the day, always in the back of his mind. Do better.

“Don’t you get tired of that?” and asking her that feels like showing weakness, revealing how he isn’t the perfect Red Ranger, ready to take on the job.

Kimberly doesn’t take it as that.

“All the time, but I know that it’s better than being Kimberly Hart, megabitch.”

“Kimberly, you aren’t a megabitch.” Zack says from the other side of Jason. “More like a regular sized bitch.”

She smiles at him.

“Thanks, Zack.”

“You don’t get it.” Jason tries to explain. “There’s this pressure all around me. Every day to be good all the time. I just wanted to let go for the night.”

“Pressure from who?” Trini asks. Her anger must have faded just a little, because her arms have unfolded and her words have lost their sharpness.

“My dad...you guys.”

“Us?” Kimberly says in disbelief.

“What did we do?” Zack ask.

Billy answers before Jason gets a chance too.

“Responsibility.” He shakes his head. “I thought you were okay with this.”

“Responsibility? Someone explain.” Kimberly commands.

“He feels responsible for us like he has to protect us.” Billy explains.

Billy’s wrong. It’s not just a feeling. It’s a fact. Their his team. He has to look out for all of them even if that weight seems crushing at times.

Jason tries to sit up, so that they can hear what he’s saying.

“Zordon said - “

Zack cuts him off and Kimberly puts her hand on his chest gently pushing him back down. 

“Fuck, Zordon. He tried to use us to bring himself back to life.”

“The Red Ranger is supposed to - “

“Fuck what the Red Ranger is supposed to do. That’s how Zordon ran his team. We’re different.” Zack continues.

Kimberly sensing that he still isn’t convinced takes charge.

“Jason, do you listening to our problems and let me sneak into your room in the middle of the night because we’re friends or because we’re rangers?”

The answer is a no-brainer.

“Because we’re friends.” He says, because that’s fact.

“And as friends we share our problems with each other and deal with them together. Why would it be any different with you?”

“If you feel like it’s too much come to us. Spread the weight out.” Zack says.

“Yeah,” Trini agrees. “You aren’t our big and bad protector, who has to take stuff on alone. We all protect each other. We’re a team.”

And their words are corny as hell, but Jason feels a sense of rightness come over him anyway.

 

Jason Lee Scott is protective over his friends. He can no longer hide that. Does he go a little overboard sometimes? Yeah, he can’t help it; he loves them. And his friends love him back. That little part of his soul that twist when they get hurt? That comes from the fact that they are a part of him. They managed to become one massive Power Ranger MegaSoul (Billy’s words, not his) and it’s kind of awesome.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so normally i dont like write these super long notes, but i wanted to explain a lot of the thought process behind this chapter. first the title was 5 times, but there's only 4 members of team outside of jason...so mistake on my part. also if you feel like this chapter was a drop in quality from the rest, it's due to the fact that i never finish stories so when i wrote this i was really fighting myself to do so. but my one goal with this was to finish and i did!! so this was really a personal achievement for me.
> 
> also the end does seem kind of wrapped up quickly...i was tired. but i wanted to show how jason really feels the pressure when it comes to the team and like he's 17 that shit is going to get to him. also my goal wasn't to demonize sam, but show how at 17 we sort of take everything our parents say and twist it. also this chapter corny af. no shame.
> 
> also ur comments = my reason for living. thank you for being so supportive.


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